U.S.-Israel Strategic Cooperation:
Joint Infantry Training

(Updated October 2013)

With increased combat activities in the Middle East during the First Gulf War in 1991 and through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan of the 2000's, the U.S. Marine Corps has used America's strategic alliance with Israel to better train and prepare its soldiers for battle. Israel is known as having one of the most tactically advanced infantry forces in the world and they are one of few countries in the Middle East that allows Marines to train on its soil with soldiers from Israel Defense Forces.

In late November and early December 1998, Marine forces conducted land and sea maneuvers for nearly two weeks in the Negev desert. The exercises were reportedly routine and not related to tensions with Iraq and a U.S. Embassy spokesman said the Marines were conducting the exercises alone.

In April 2005, Marines from the Sixth Fleet who specialize in extraction
operations to evacuate U.S. personnel from hostile territory conducted joint maneuvers with their Israeli counterparts. The Marines simulated
an armed assault from the sea while IDF forces maneuvered inland until the two forces met. Military sources
said the operation was code named “Kaya Green.”

In June 2007, the Army Corps of Engineers finished construction of a 7.4 square mile fake city in the heart of the Negev desert that Israel will use for simulated urban combat training, often together with Marines. "This is something developed by us in cooperation with the U.S. Army; we intend for it to become a valuable center of knowledge that will also benefit our American allies and other friends," said Brig. Gen. Uzi Moskovich, commander of Israel's National Ground Training Center.

In March 2008, US and Israeli forces initiated a joint battle simulation exercise, code-named "Juniper Falcon," designed to improve coordination between the two countries’ armed forces. The joint simulation was part of a general agreement between the two countries to to hold regular joint training exercises aimed at boosting “interoperability, understanding and cooperation,” said a military statement released after the exercise was completed. The two forces participated in "Juniped Falcon" again in 2010.

In August 2011, a group of 50 specialized Marines trained for two weeks at the Urban Warfare Training facility in southern Israel, mostly working on close-quarter battle. "[The Marines] have been trained to re-capture buildings and to clear out terrorist threats inside of a building, but they've never been trained on how to you know clear a building, and move to another one clear it and move to another one," Marine Platoon Commander Mike Jevons said.

In August 2013, Givati Brigade Special Forces conducted a joint exercise with units from the Marine Corps to examine various techniques of urban warfare, to teach the IDF approach to urban warfare and to learn about the Marines’ operational experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. The exercise took place over three days at the Urban Warfare Training. The purpose of the exercise was for each unit to learn from the operational experience of the other in fighting in urban terrain.